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Electronic drum

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Basic electronic drum set.
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Basic electronic drum set.

An electronic drum is a percussion instrument in which the sound is generated by an electronic waveform generator or sampler instead of by acoustic vibration.

Contents

How Electronic Drums Work

Roland Module
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Roland Module

When an electronic drum pad is struck, a voltage change is triggered in the embedded piezoelectric transducer (piezo) or force sensitive resistor (FSR). The resultant signals are transmitted to an electronic drum module via TS or TRS cables, and are translated into digital waveforms, which produce the desired percussion sound assigned to that particular trigger pad. Most newer drum modules have trigger inputs for 2 or more cymbals, a kick, 3-4 toms, a dual-zone snare, (head and rim) and a hi-hat. The hi-hat has a foot controller which produces open and closed sounds with some models offering variations in-between. By having the ability to assign different sounds to any given pad, the electronic drummer has nearly unlimited potential for configuring many different sounding drum kits from one set of electronic drums. Additionally, electronic drummers can sample non-percussive sounds and use them as drum sounds, as is the case with most industrial music. Many see this as a great advantage over acoustic drums, as one can have a jazz, rock or ballad drumset by merely changing the kit selector switch on the module.

Early Electronic Drums

From an interview with Graeme Edge of The Moody Blues:

Question- "One of the strangest pieces was 'Procession' (Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, 1971) which featured the pioneering work of Graeme Edge's electronic drum kit. How did that come about?"

Graeme- "...I'd got in touch with the professor of electronics at Sussex University, Brian Groves. We worked up an electronic drum kit, a marvelous idea. I had the control panel in front of me, its old hat now but we were the first to do it. There were pieces of rubber with silver paper on the back with a silver coil that moved up and down inside a magenet that produced a signal, so it was touch sensitive. I had 5 snares across the top and then ten tom-toms and then a whole octave of bass drums underneath my feet and then four lots of 16 sequencers, two on each side. There was a gap- to play a space- a tamborine, ebony stick, snare and three tom-toms. This was pre-chip days, back then you did it all with transisters. So it had something like 500 transistors. The electronic drums inside looked something like spaghetti. When it worked it was superb, but it was before its day, because it was so sensitive..."

Many drummers claim that early electronic drums gave only an approximation of the sound of acoustic drums, as there were often technical issues with triggering, as well as musical issues such as decreased range of dynamic and tonal subtlety. Consequently, the pioneering electronic drumsets such as the early Simmons and Yamaha models, were often used for certain types of rock, disco and techno genres in which the drums were usually expected to play a specific pattern or beat repeatedly with no variation in timbre. These were little more than manual sequencers.

It should be noted that there are inexpensive low-end drums and modules currently in production whose qu"ality is just marginally better than their pioneering counterparts. For the most part, these are targeted toward the hobbyist or novice drummer.

Recent Innovations

Roland TD-20
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Roland TD-20

Newer drum kits by Roland, Ddrum and Yamaha have addressed many of the downfalls of early electronic drums. While each of these manufacturers have entry-level units, the professional kits are geared toward creating a sound and playing experience which is nearly indistinguishable from a quality acoustic kit. Examples include the Yamaha DTXtreme IIS, the DDrum4SE and Roland's TD-12 and TD-20, having 2006 MSRPs ranging between $2,195.00 and $6,699.00. [link] Typically, these high-end kits are equipped with:

Though these innovations may help attract serious drummers, many purists feel that electronic drum kits will never offer the same nuances and playability of an acoustic set.

Electronic Drumming Communities

The following are links to community sites: forums, mailing lists, etc... related to electronic drumming:

By Brand

By Topic

Manufacturers of electronic drums and drum triggers

Listed below are some of the companies that produce electronic drum modules, trigger pads, and acoustic triggers

Famous drummers that use electronic drums, or have used them in the past

 

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